The many unique styles of trolling. Take notes.

Trolling as a fetish in summary, can be looked at as the desire to get a laugh out of any situation. When describing the situation revolving around Henderson, a seventh grader who killed himself with his parents rifle, Phillips states, “All that mattered was the punch line” (Phillips 2016 29). In the news article, “Trump Warns China He Is Willing to Pressure North Korea on His Own,” we see a number of comments that would give anybody a laugh, especially at the expense of our current president. These two in particular use sarcasm as a means to do so.

To better understand trolling as a generative, it’s good to know what generative means. Dictionary.com describes the word as being capable of producing or creating. So what could trolling be producing? Why, lulz of course! Lulz is a more corrupt version of LOL, which fits trolling perfectly. Phillips solidifies this statement with her story about Jessi Slaugher. She sums it up by saying, “By intervening on his daughters behalf, Slaughter’s father supplied trolls with an embarrassment of the latter, inadvertently attracting increasing numbers of trolls to the story.”(Phillips 2016 30) To briefly give more context, Jessi was a troll victim, and her father appeared on a YouTube video she posted to tell them off essentially, getting more and more angry. His anger only gave trolls more ammunition; more lulz.

In this case, it was Donald Trump’s attempt at handling this situation that resulted in this comment by Tom. I don’t know if you found it funny, but I sure did.

Trolling as a mask is by far the most interesting of all the types of trolling presented. Phillips describes it as, “the most conspicuously problematic, is trolls’ persistent emotional dissociation. In no way are trolls affected by the havoc they wreak” (Phillips 2016 33). So in summary, the cold way trolls act, appearing and showing that they could care less about the emotions of their victims, or anyone else for that matter, is what is referred to as trolling as a mask. Can you blame them? They don’t do it for you or me, they “do it for the lulz” (Phillips 2016 33).